Stories. Short stories, long stories, interesting stories. If you love reading stories, this blog is for you. I have collected stories over a period of time and I upload one story every alternate day. These stories are not my own work but are a collection of interesting items and stories. Apart from stories I also upload any item which I feel is interesting or useful

Saturday, August 6, 2011

A young couple moves into a new neighborhood. The next morning, while they are eating breakfast, the young woman sees her neighbor hang the wash outside.

That laundry is not very clean, she said, she doesn't know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap.

Her husband looked on, but remained silent. Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, the young woman would make the same comments.

About one month later, the woman was surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband: "Look! She has learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her this."

The husband said: "I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows!"

And so it is with life: "What we see when watching others depends on the purity of the window through which we look. Before we give any criticism, it might be a good idea to check our state of mind and ask ourselves if we are ready to see the good rather than to be looking for something in the person we are about to judge. "

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You know the situation - - you’ve been in it hundreds of times. Perhaps you’re decompressing after another working day : cool drink in hand, solicitous spouse settled near by, the scent of supper floating in the evening air. Or you’re bent over some task that requires utmost concentration – repairing a toaster, balancing your bank account. Whatever your activity, the peace and symmetry of the moment are shattered by the arrival of a child – a child with a question.

Almost certainly, it will not be a question you can answer satisfactorily: Daddy, if the sun is burning, why isn’t there any smoke? Why do we lower the flag at night, when we have to put it up again in the morning? If hours are longer than minutes, why is the hour hand shorter?

We think that when children ask such questions they are interested in the correct answers, and that it is our parental duty to provide them. How else, we ask ourselves, will the tykes pass their exams? Until recently I thought so too. But then, just this year, while wrestling with questions asked by my own three girls, I made a conceptual breakthrough: children couldn’t care two hoots about receiving an accurate response to most of their questions. What they are really looking for is easy entertainment.

You see, there is considerable silent merriment to be derived from watching Daddy fumble for an answer that doesn’t exist. As it becomes agonizingly clear that you don’t know the answer, you have suffered a momentary set-back in your authoritarian role. The youngster now has what the children everywhere, in private, call The Edge.

He will be quick to exploit it. A cost-of-living increase in his pocket money will be requested. He will argue that he should be allowed to watch a certain late-night television programme all the way through. Material goods – a set of drums, sweets, a tricycle- will be sought. Your opponent knows that your loss of face will be fleeting, and that therefore he must move swiftly.

In order to avoid this fateful Edge you must follow three fundamental percepts:

Answer immediately: Time is on the side of the child who bugs you. Any stalling on your part (“Daddy’s trying to sleep”; “That’s a silly question”) will be like trying to put out a fire with paraffin. Remember, he has all day.

Be concise: If a youngster braces you with “ Is the tooth fairy a girl or a boy?” it’s a losing game to qualify your answer (“Of course, you understand, a girl tooth fairy could put money under your pillow every bit as skillfully as a boy tooth fairy could”). Think of your answering as akin to digging a well: the longer you work at it, the deeper into the hole you get. No, it is far better to say, with a brisk rattle of your newspaper,

“The tooth fairy is a boy.” That is the sort of no-nonsense response any child will instinctively respect.

Sound confident: It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. If a child pipes up, “Why do men wear ties?” you are unlikely to come up with the right answer, assuming there is one. Make up an answer (“To keep the Adam’s apple from catching cold”), and say it confidently, authoritatively. The tot doesn’t care why men wear ties. He is trying to amuse himself at your expense. DON’T LET HIM.

Does it sound simple? It is—as long as you realize that every question brings with it certain complications. For example, although you must answer immediately, saying the first thing that pops into you head can be risky. To show you what I mean, let’s examine a few questions recently lobbed at me by my own children.

Could you beat up Mitzi’s father?:
Mitzi’s father is a great simian hulk of a man, with fists the size of babies. His daughter, at nine, is already a lass of menacing proportions. So, when the above question was put to me by Betsy, I idly replied, “Sweetie, I’d have trouble beating up Mitzi.”

Students of these matters will be quick to spot the fatal flaw in my response: the probability that one’s words will be instantly relayed by small couriers to friends and neighbors, leading to the eventual arrival on one’s doorstep of Mitzi’s father wearing a T-shirt the size of a mainsail, and squinting through Gestapo eyes. “I understand,” he growls, “you intend to beat up my Mitzi!”

How should I have replied to Betsy’s original query? So; ‘we’ll never know, will we?’ given with an enigmatic little smile that leaves no doubt whom your money would back in such a show-down. But nothing to quote, you see, nothing to be grasped by mini-Mata Harris and carried to the surrounding countryside.

If you have a blowpipe and a poison dart, what happens if you inhale?

My mistake here was trying to develop the problem into a mode of experimental inquiry. “Let’s find out,” I said briskly to Cathy. “Fetch a straw, scissors, a toothpick and Betsy’s jay feather.”

I whittled an aerodynamic stick from the toothpick. A dab of gum applied to a few snips from the feather resulted in a handsome little dart. “OK,” I said to the girls. They were all there now, watching intently, their instinct for the morbid at the fore –“here we are in the rain forest, here is our poison dart and here is our blowpipe. I pushed the dart into the straw and blew; the missile didn’t budge.

“A technical malfunction,” I explained. “Matter of calibration. The main point we’re making here is that the dart, with its angled feathers, can’t go backwards up the gun.

“Try it, Daddy,” urged Cathy. “Inhale. Hard.”

I sucked sharply. Surprise! The projectile shot into my throat.

Moral: never try to demonstrate your answers.

Where do babies come from?

This old chestnut nearly always occurs in the presence of visiting clergymen or elderly relatives, children having a sure touch when it comes to selecting an audience for maximum amusement. In the former case, a simple “Let’s hear what the Reverend has to say about the matter” would suffice and the Reverend would turn the topic towards God and religion and the topic would be confused.

Sometimes, of course, they’ll nail you alone, and in such cases it’s best to be prepared. As I wasn’t one evening while peacefully shelling peas before dinner. “Dad,” Cathy began, “where….” And so on. Realizing that I held a splendid teaching aid right in my hands, I said, “Suppose this boy pea pod meets that girl pea pod. They get married….”
“What’s his name?”
“Sam. And hers is Patricia. They get married and everything, and lo!—I snapped open Patricia’s abdomen, revealing green sextuplets—“Here are the babies, growing right in her tummy, you see.”
To this day Cathy won’t eat peas.

No, I’ve found the best answer to this question to be a clear and forthright, ”Go and ask Mummy.”

If the world was made of ice cream, would it melt?

A typical scientific enquiry. Of course, it’s pointless to answer, “The earth isn’t made of ice cream,” because the child can say “But what if” till the cows come home and for a considerable period thereafter. No, the only way to handle these “what if” concoctions is to grant the supposition and snap of the semi-reasonable reply: “Yes, it would melt.”

“Where would it drip to?”

“South Africa.”

The key is to keep the answers coming.

Because, Lord knows, the questions will keep coming. Can you gargle with your mouth closed? (Correct response: No) Would you break your arm for Rs.1000/(You need more data on this one: how much would it hurt, and how long would it take to get better?) If I was drowning and Mummy was drowning, who would you save? (Correct answer: I’d sacrifice myself and save you both” Under the terms of the question, a total of two people can survive, and Mummy is sure to be listening.) Where do tortoises go when they die? (Don’t say “In a hole in the garden. Believe me) How much money do we have?

Face the whirlwind unafraid. Be calm, confident, concise. If your child is looking for laughs, let him watch cartoons. If it’s The Edge he’s after, don’t let him get It.

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A man and his friend were in a city, walking through the street. It was during the noon lunch hour and the streets were filled with people. Cars were honking their horns, taxicabs were squealing around corners, sirens were wailing, and the sounds of the city were almost deafening. Suddenly, the man said to his friend, "I hear a cricket."

His friend said, "What? You must be crazy. You couldn't possibly hear a cricket in all of this noise!"

"No, I'm sure of it," the man said, "I heard a cricket."

"That's crazy," said the friend.

The man listened carefully for a moment, and then walked across the street to a big cement planter where some shrubs were growing. He looked into the bushes, beneath the branches, and sure enough, he located a small cricket. His friend was utterly amazed. "That's incredible," said his friend. "You must have super-human ears!"

"No," said the man. "My ears are no different from yours. It all depends on what you're listening for."

"But that can't be!" said the friend. "I could never hear a cricket in this noise."

"Yes, it's true," came the reply. "It depends on what is really important to you. Here, let me show you."

He reached into his pocket, pulled out a few coins, and discreetly dropped them on the sidewalk. And then, with the noise of the crowded street still blaring in their ears, they noticed every head within twenty feet turn and look to see if the money that tinkled on the pavement was theirs.

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Tuesday, August 2, 2011

One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do.
Finally, he decided since the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway, it just wasn't worth it to retrieve the donkey. So, the farmer invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They all grabbed shovels, and began to shovel dirt into the well.
All the other farm animals were very upset about this, because the donkey was their friend. But they discovered there was nothing they could do to help him. At first, when the donkey realized what was happening, he cried horribly. Then, to everyone's amazement, he quieted down. A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well, and was astonished at what he saw.
With every shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off, and take a step up on the dirt as it piled up. As the farmer's neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well, and trotted off!
MORAL: Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. But each trouble can be a stepping stone. What happens to you isn't nearly as important as how you react to it. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not giving up!
Shake it off, and take a step up!

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A nurse took the tired, anxious serviceman to the bedside 'Your son is here,' she said to the old man.

She had to repeat the words several times before the patient’s eyes opened.

He was heavily sedated because of the pain of his heart attack; he dimly saw the young uniformed Marine standing outside the oxygen tent. He reached out his hand. The Marine wrapped his toughened fingers around the old man's limp ones, squeezing a message of love and encouragement.

The nurse brought a chair so that the Marine could sit beside the bed. All through the night the young Marine sat there in the poorly lighted ward, holding the old man's hand and offering him words of love and strength.

Occasionally, the nurse suggested that the Marine move away and rest awhile.

He refused. Whenever the nurse came into the ward, the Marine was oblivious of her and of the night noises of the hospital - the clanking of the oxygen tank, the laughter of the night staff members exchanging greetings, the cries and moans of the other patients.

Now and then she heard him say a few gentle words. The dying man said nothing, only held tightly to his son all through the night.

Along towards dawn, the old man died. The Marine released the now lifeless hand he had been holding and went to tell the nurse. While she did what she had to do, he waited.

On her return, she started to offer words of sympathy, but the Marine interrupted her.
'Who was that man?' he asked.
The nurse was startled, 'He was your father,' she answered.
'No, he wasn't,' the Marine replied. 'I never saw him before in my life.'

'Then why didn't you say something when I took you to him?'

'I knew right away there had been a mistake, but I also knew he needed his son, and his son just wasn't here. When I realized that he was too sick to tell whether or not I was his son, knowing how much he needed me, I stayed.'

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